Perma Construction

I love to cook. Therefore I desire a functional and pleasing environment in which to perfect my culinary skills. Thereby I am restricted from using the kitchen on weekends.

I am fortunate to have a spouse who is skilled in construction, who is willing to ensure that the kitchen is left temporarily functional between weekend work sessions, and who so far hasn't ditched everything all together. See, I am no happy camper after being shut-out of the kitchen, only to return to an always refreshed cleaning adventure and, by far the worst part, nothing to eat.

Our home is a pre-WWII bungalow. My grandmother, much to my chagrin, refers to it as looking like a doll's house. (I roll my eyes). The existing kitchen is small and square (about 10' x 10'). When you consider that a corner of the kitchen is functionally little more than a thoroughfare between other rooms, this shrinks down to about 5' x 10' of usable space. We chose not to change the original footprint of the house, so it has been a challenge to squeeze a modern refrigerator, stove, and sink all within these confines and still have room to move around. The refrigerator in particular has always been a dilema. The previous owners left theirs partially blocking the doorway that leads into the kitchen from the living room. After going over it graphically many times, we've found that there really is no other placement option. I looked for a smaller fridge, but there isn't much of a market for small fridges. I got the smallest one I could find locally. It still impedes access to the kitchen. So part of our re-model involves moving the doorway to accomodate the refrigerator. To mimic the other architectural features of our house, we decided to put an arch at the top of the doorway. You can see this feature in my photo above (taken from the living room into the kitchen). Yes, the refrigerator has also been banished from the kitchen for the duration of the re-model.

And, you know, it really is amazing how nice it is to have a doorway through which you can move unimpeded (particularly when you are carrying heavy and bulky objects, such as laundry baskets). I think it will all be worthwhile in the long run.